Posts Tagged ‘benefits’

One of the latest government gimmicks is to have e-petitions. If over 100,000 people sign them then the petition’s topic is debated in Parliament. Currently the most popular petition (107,037 signatures at the time of writing) is demanding that convicted rioters should lose all of their benefits. I’m all for cracking down hard on the rioters, but this particular idea is one that I think is both wrong and foolish.

Steve Taylor

Here is the exact wording of the petition:

“Any persons convicted of criminal acts during the current London riots should have all financial benefits removed. No tax payer should have to contribute to those who have destroyed property, stolen from their community and shown a disregard for the country that provides for them.”

There are, in my opinion, at least three good reasons why you should not support this petition.

Retrospective punishment. Any decent system of justice is based on the idea that changes in the law only affect future behaviour. Turning round and changing the law about what people have done in the past is a very dangerous road to go down. Frankly it’s un-British (or at least it should be) to change the law retrospectively.

We don’t take benefits away from people for other crimes. It’s nonsense to say that rioters are worse than other thieves, thugs, rapists and murderers. If you commit a crime you complete your sentence and then your debt to society is paid. Once you’ve done your time that’s it, the police shouldn’t have the right to come round and punish you more because you’re a bad sort and neither should society continue to punish you forever because it feels particularly outraged about this particular crime.

People may well disagree with me on the principles that found the last two points, but my final point is a pragmatic one. If you permanently deprive everyone convicted of rioting of state benefits then you are basically giving them a choice between living on the streets and funding their lives through crime or dying. A homeless person, with a criminal record, who is not permitted to receive any help from the state is going to have no other means of surviving. So, you end up with a situation where you have a significant increase in crime and everything gets more expensive for the taxpayer (I can assure you that keeping someone in prison is more expensive than keeping them on benefits).I also agree with the moral argument against leaving people homeless on the streets, but regardless of human-decency, the massive increase in crime and prison costs seems like much too high a price to pay to satisfy one’s anger at a bunch of thugs. Despite their unacceptability, the riots do show up real problems in society and frankly cutting off people’s benefits is going to do nothing to solve them.

I expect most of the people who read this wouldn’t have signed the petition anyway, but if you were thinking of it then I hope this gives you pause for thought. If you really want to sign a petition anyway, then I would recommend the one on retaining the ban on capital punishment.